Manhunt 2, and the old video game violence debate

[Muscletang]

If nobody knows Rockstar games, the ones who make the Grand Theft Auto series, Bully, and State of Emergency, has made a new game called Manhunt 2. The game got an AO rating which means you have to be 18 or older to even buy this game. It got this rating due to graphic violence.

Manhunt 2 banned in UK

ESRB rates Manhunt 2 AO or "Adults Only"

Blockbuster won't carry Manhunt 2 with AO rating

Nintendo or Sony sell Manhunt 2 with AO rating

Manhunt 2 probably banned in Australia and German

Manhunt 2 put on hold


Now for the debate. I heard about this game and saw it was coming out for the Wii so I figured I'd pick it up. Looks like I won't be doing that now.

So, is this right? Is this wrong? People say this is a "snuff game" or it's "too violent" and so on and so forth. Grand Theft Auto can be a snuff game as well as a person could spend hours just going on a mindless killing spree.

I'm also pretty sure that if this was Grand Theft Auto 4 and it got an AO rating, it'd be a go. Why? Simple, the game sells and it sells alot.

Now people are afraid these types of games cause mindless killing machines in our youth and should be banned (see Jack Thompson). I disagree.

A place won't sell it because it's "too violent" and gets the AO rating but I walk over to the videos and can pick up Saw or Hostel unrated version, along with a porn, and finally buy a few cartons of cigarettes, something wrong here?

Look if you want to go through great pains to keep it from kids, great, do it. I agree there are some things kids or even some teenagers shouldn't play. Don't ban it or say "no this is bad for you" because some nut didn't know. I know the difference between what's real and what's fake. I also know it's bad to really do that. I've played hours, and I mean hours of GTA just going around running over people and hitting cop cars. Have I done this in real life? No. Will I? No.

[MonsterBengt]

Let's ban stupidity, the real reason for whatever the outcome they think "Manhunt" and the alikes has.

[taranaki]

Can't say that I know anyone who wastes their time with such puerile nonsense. It takes a particular mindset to play first person shooter games, and the more 'realistic' [i.e. mindlessly gory] they get, the less they appeal to me. When our kids are old enough to decide what kind of things they want to do with their spare time, I hope that we will have inspired them sufficiently to use their spare time constructively instead of playing with toy guns.

[drunken monkey]

and i'm sure that you never did anything that was considered purile nonsense by your seniors when you were a child.
heck, i know a lot of people that would consider arguing on an internet forum purile nonsense.

[RSX-S777]

Debating on the internet, however, still requires a modicum of intelligence (if done well).

I've seen the original Manhunt played before. A game created purely for shock value. Once you've lost your little hard-on for the boringly repetitive and incredibly gory murders you can perform, there is no real plot or substance. But I don't see why it should be banned. If that's your thing, I don't see why you shouldn't have the right to waste your time.

[2strokebloke]

Let me just say, that the things that happen in real life have been infinitely more violent and depraved than anything that has happened in any video game.

Why are people so occupied with censoring fantasy, when we have far worse problems that actually exist in real life? There's probably more parents worried about what kind of fake gore goes into video games than there are parents worried about little kids getting blown to smithereens by old land mines. Seriously. People need to get their priorities into whack.

[jon@af]

It bothers me a little that this is even an issue. There are plenty of games on the market that are just as violent as this game and just as gory, the only difference is that they use futuristic weapons to kill people and not shards of glass or a choke wire. They think they are shielding children from the evils of the world, yet as 2stroke has mentioned, it's hard to look anywhere these days without seeing things that are much worse than one pixelated character killing another. Hell, the recent murder of a pregnant mother is something that I find a bit more disturbing than a video game that is obviously fiction and if the people cannot discern fiction from reality then I would question their credibility.

[drunken monkey]

i think it's all down to it being easier to rally against a corporation than to address the real issues.

[jon@af]

Originally Posted by drunken monkey

i think it's all down to it being easier to rally against a corporation than to address the real issues.

It's always been that way, I feel.

[taranaki]

Not really. Most of us choose not to participate in 'real' violence. I'm sure that there's not a computer literate person who has never felt the urge to play games of some sort. Only the level of graphic violence separates the ordinary person from the weak and the disfunctional.

[drunken monkey]

Depends on what you classify as real violence and where you draw the line. I have coming up to 13 years training in various martial arts. Training naturally involves some at times, very heavy sparring with varying levels of protection. To some people, the fact that I have no qualms about fighting someone is horrifying. Let's not even talk about learning to choke someone out. Or the fact that in my most local class, the group consists of people from 16 to 30+ and that at one time or another, we've crossed hands with each other. In a lot of people's eyes, a 28 year old punching and kicking a 16 year old is totally unacceptable, even if you take the context of it into consideration. Which of course brings us nicely into importance of the context of things.

[taranaki]

two consenting adults engaging in controlled sport is perfectly reasonable.
Some sad fat kid transfering his anger issues into pretending to throttle a prostitute to death is disturbed.

[RSX-S777]

Realistically, I stand a far better chance of keeping my kids from playing a game with objectionable content than I do ending the threat of unexploded land mines in Vietnam or keeping disturbed individuals I've never met from killing their pregnant wives...

[drunken monkey]

Playing devils' advocate here, I don't think that it is entrely neccessary to censor or control things like games. To paraphrase 'Naki, I hope that my kids are intelligent enough to decide what is right/wrong/good/bad. I jokingly said in another thread that I would teach my kids how to fight as early as I can so that they know that I can and will beat on them if they don't listen to me. The real hope is that being to able to fight and defend themselves from an early age would put them in a better position to judge how to behave towards people. The same goes for things like this. There is a difference in enjoying certain things like games (no matter the content) and copying them, no? A lot of people liked the matrix films. A lot of people went out and dressed like them. Not many went the whole hog and stuck a metal spike into their heads. At the end of the day, Manhunt 2 is just a game. And considering that in the UK there exists an 18 certificate, I find it insulting that they think a game is unsuitable for adults as if I can't decide for myself.